268 SUBMAKINE CABLE LAYING AND EEPAIRING. 



position near the bows, where the cable as it passes inboard 

 will pass im-mediately over it. The ends of the coil are 

 connected by a pair of well-insulated leads to a telephone in 

 the testing-room. An intermittent current or current reversals 

 are passed into the cable by an auto transmitter or other means, 

 either from shore or from ship, as most convenient, the other 

 end of the cable being free. If these currents are put in by 

 the shore the telephone will indicate a distinct sound when the 

 fault comes inboard, and when put in by the ship the sounds 

 in the telephone will diminish or cease altogether when the 

 fault comes in. The apparatus also indicates the side on which 

 a break is, without cutting the cable. The advantage in the 

 use of this device is that cable need not be cut and the time 

 during which the ship is stopped at each cutting is saved. In 

 faults of high resistance the effect in the telephone is not so 

 distinct, and the fact that this class of fault is more frequently 

 met with now than faults of low resistance probably accounts 

 for this otherwise most ingenious and useful device not being in 

 such extensive use on ships at the present day. But in shore-end 

 repairs from a lighter or boat, where it is possible to underrun 

 to a break, the searcher is of great service in indicating which 

 way the break lies. 



Very varied success attends the work of removing faults. 

 Sometimes the first position to which the ship goes turns out 

 to be close to the fault, at other times it appears close but is 

 really not so, and after testing and cutting, say, three or four 

 times over a length of perhaps five miles the fault is at last got 

 inboard. In other cases it may be estimated after one cut has 

 been made at, say, one mile that the fault is much further oft^ 

 say seven miles. In that case the cable end is buoyed and 

 the ship runs about eight miles further on and grapples 

 again. Having got cable, it is cut and tested, and a third 

 buoy put down on the good end. Say the fault is found 

 to lie towards the second buoy. After cutting at two miles, 

 say the fault is found to be inboard. A good piece is then 

 spliced on and paid out up to third buoy, where the end is 

 spliced on to the end on buoy and the bight slipped overboard. 

 Finally, the ship runs back to second buoy, splices on a piece 

 to this end and pays out to first buoy, where the final splice Is 

 made. 



